In The End
by TheGladElf
Summary: Some nights Selina wonders why she doesn't just walk away. But in the end, she knows: Being without him is worse than anything else he could put her through.


They were talking about stitches when Selina reentered the infirmary.

"Sixteen stitches, Master Bruce. Not a record for you by any means," Alfred was saying. Bruce actually laughed. With his good arm he pressed an ice pack to his head. A dark tube of blood fed into it, but he still looked greyer than Selina would have liked.

"I'll try harder next time, Alfred." He sat up carefully, slowly. Alfred tutted and came back over to care for the less fatal of the knife wounds on Bruce's body.

Selina didn't want to look at him. Because looking at him reminded her of every excruciating second of the drive home. An hour ago, Bruce had been minutes from bleeding out and now he and Alfred were joking about stitches. What Selina wanted to do was scream obscenities at the both of them and then collapse into a tired, sobbing heap. But she didn't. Because she knew she'd regret that in the morning.

So instead of hurling his ring at him with an "I can't take this anymore, we're through", Selina walked over and slid the band onto his left ring finger. And then slid her own on.

"How do you feel?" she asked. Bruce grunted and shrugged, causing Alfred to protest.

"I've had worse," he said. Selina knew it was true. Tonight wasn't the first night she'd found him bleeding in a Gotham alleyway. Selina nodded, because that's what she did on a normal night.

"Well, I'm going to go upstairs and take a shower. You'll have Alfred help you up to bed?" she asked, though she knew the answer. At his nod, she set his robe down next to him. And then, because she did on the nights that nothing was wrong, she kissed him on the cheek.

Normal nights ended with him at the computer, scowling as he typed in his notes. Sometimes he'd pause and then continue writing again, noting better ways to handle the situation. But he was never really in the mood for a distraction and Selina was never one to wait up for him.

She was clinging to the façade of their normal routine, because that was the only way she would make it up those stairs and away from him in time.

The click of the door as it shut echoed off the tile walls of the master bathroom. She locked it. Water rushing out of the shower head quickly filled the room with new sounds. Her robe was ripped off and flung onto the floor. The action lacked the satisfaction that she craved. She wished she'd thrown something breakable.

But that too she would have regretted. It would have left evidence. There was nothing he didn't notice.

She'd signed up for this when she married him. She knew that. They'd known each other long enough, saved each other enough times, to know that nights like this one were inevitable. She tried to let the warm water ease away the anger and frustration and fear.

Nights like this were why she hated being back in Gotham. Here the bad guys had history with Batman. Here they were out for his blood.

Suds glistened over skin turning pink. She eased up on the loofah a little bit. Wouldn't look good to walk into the bedroom bleeding because she'd scrubbed too hard. And she did all right—until she tried to get the blood out from under her fingernails. His blood.

She broke.

Selina knew all too well what it was like to lose him. Most days she pushed those morbid, empty months away. It had been a long time ago. And he had come back. Nights like tonight, the idea of watching him be put in the ground for real was too much for her to deal with. But she couldn't let him know that. She wouldn't be the reason he stopped being who he was meant to be. She was strong enough and they both knew it.

But she still had weak moments and they were painful. She'd learned a long time ago that seeing her like this weighed heavily on him, so she made sure he didn't.

With the shower to drown out her sobs, Selina cried.

When the tears ran out, Selina turned the shower off and pulled on the nightclothes that sat waiting for her. She took a moment to press a cold washcloth to her eyes, in case he'd left the lights on.

Bruce was smart enough to know why the shower stayed on so long and why she locked the door. He'd seen all her highs and lows. The birthday she tried to ignore the every year. The pain of having her own sister turn against her. Every blasted conflict she'd had with Damien—who could be too much like his mother for her own comfort sometimes. But when it had to do with him, she rarely let him see just how deeply nights like this affected her. Because she hated the pained look he would give her as he tried to comfort her when what he needed to be doing was rest.

The lights were off when she entered the bedroom, but the closed curtains told her that he was there. She liked the curtains open—but then, she had no problems sleeping in broad daylight.

"Selina," he started as she crawled into her side of the bed. The crying jag had left her exhausted, even more so than she had been an hour ago.

"Bruce," she said, stopping him. "Can we please talk about this in the morning? When I'm not ready to throttle you for being so idiotically stupid and heroic?" Silence was his only sign of agreement. She still hadn't looked at him. Selina settled into bed, facing away from her husband. But Bruce was stubborn too. Both of his arms snagged her around the waist, pulling her into him. The solidness of him as he held her—reassurance that he was there. The tightness in her mind eased.

"I'm sorry."

But they both knew he'd do it again.

And had she been in his shoes, she probably would have done the same.

"I know," Selina said. "I love you."

In the end that was the kicker. They were in this together, because they knew how painful it was to be in this apart.

"I love you," Bruce replied.

In the end that was what mattered.

* * *

This has been in my computer for probably the better part of two years. And I have abso-flippin'-lutely no idea why I haven't posted it yet. Sigh. Following the events of RIP and tying in to where I feel DC kind of, maybe, sorta might have gotten to eventually in Batman Inc...If that stupid reboot had never happened. AGH!


End file.
